Don’t like the result of vanity searches? Don’t sue Yahoo

A Wisconsin judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Yahoo after a woman sued the …

Internet users who are unhappy with the results when they search for their own names may just have to live with it—at least if they try to argue that the search results are a trademark violation. A US District Court has dismissed a lawsuit against Yahoo in which Beverly Stayart said the company intentionally used her name to produce search results related to porno, sexual dysfunction drugs, and adult dating services. The court said that Stayart's claims were invalid and barred her from refiling, ruling that Yahoo was protected under the Communications Decency Act.

Stayart had filed her lawsuit against Yahoo in February of this year, alleging that the company had made numerous trademark violations by "misusing" her name in search results. Stayart, a well-educated bank VP and animal protection activist, said in her original complaint that she is the only Beverly (or occasionally "Bev") Stayart on the Internet, and therefore her name represents a certain professional value. When she searched for her name on Yahoo, however, she was appalled to find results pointing her to online pharmacies advertising Cialis, pages linking to spyware, and a website captioned "HOTTEST DAILY PORN."

When notified of this, Yahoo told Stayart that it has no control over what third-party websites put on their pages and that it doesn't censor materials that are offensive or inappropriate. "Instead, we present information as it is reflected on the Web, allowing you to draw your own informed conclusions about what you see," the company told her.

Stayart decided, then, that Yahoo was misusing her trademark and made nine claims against the company, including false endorsement under the Federal Lanham Act, violations of her Statutory Right to Privacy, and violations of her Common Law Right to Privacy.

The court didn't buy Stayart's arguments. In his ruling, Judge Rudolph Randa said that not liking the search results for your name doesn't automatically constitute a trademark violation—in fact, he repeatedly described Stayart's concerns as "emotional" and "non-commercial." Additionally, even if Stayart had been using her identity in a commercial way, Judge Randa said that there would be no likelihood of confusion thanks to Yahoo's search results. "No one who accessed these links could reasonably conclude that Bev Stayart endorsed the products at issue," he wrote.

Randa also noted that Yahoo was protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), as it did not create the content that Stayart was suing over. Indeed, this is the same law that has protected Roommates.com and craigslist in the past from being sued over discriminatory housing listings created by users. Stayart had argued that protecting Yahoo under the CDA would affect other intellectual property laws, but the judge shot that down by saying that Stayart didn't even state a valid IP claim in the first place.

As a result, Randa granted Yahoo's motion to dismiss the lawsuit and denied Stayart's request to file again. Indeed, it seems as if this is a case of the wrong claim thrown at the wrong entity—if Stayart had chosen to sue the specific companies using her name in their metadata or on their websites, the lawsuit may have gone differently for her.

Further reading:

Search PACER for case number 2:09-cv-00116-RTR in the Eastern District of Wisconsin

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui